Comments for Ghost in the Machinehttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net
Haunting the Web Since 1999Sun, 29 Mar 2015 09:12:23 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Comment on Now as Ever, GOP-Lite Won’t Work. by Mikehttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/2014-midterms/#comment-157548008681574
Sun, 29 Mar 2015 09:12:23 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21812#comment-157548008681574long time reader, first time commenter here…

it’s nice to see someone – especially someone associated with the lib/left – admit that “lesser-of-two-evils” is not a strategy, much less a winning strategy. it’s a base, cynical race to the bottom. and as you correctly observe, even the ignorant american herd will favor a thread of genuine enthusiasm over a blanket of (empty) promises.

if hope & change couldn’t happen under obama, what can dems possibly offer now? this question will haunt the party for long, long time. an entire generation of young people were duped. but this generation is equipped with different tools in a new age… they can find a world of options at their fingertips, and if those options don’t satisfy them, they’ll invent new options.

the two-party charade is over… someone should inform the democratic & republican parties, not that they would listen…

]]>Comment on 2014 In Film. by Chrishttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/2014-in-film/#comment-157548008616047
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 03:52:50 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21876#comment-157548008616047The post I’ve been waiting for! I’m still in a several year slump, didn’t even see 25 new movies in 2014, but here are my top 5:
1. Edge of Tomorrow
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Jodorowsky’s Dune

I haven’t seen Boyhood or Only Lovers Left Alive yet, but they are waiting in the wings. My secret shame is I’m probably still going to watch John Wick before either of those. Veronica Mars can’t be near the top, but it made me happy. I didn’t resent watching Big Hero Six, or Million Dollar Arm (which I thought I would), with the kids.

My most unpopular opinion of all must be that The Lego Movie was just OK.

]]>Comment on 2014 In Film. by Tessahttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/2014-in-film/#comment-157548008616043
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 01:33:03 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21876#comment-157548008616043Yep, it was a bad year.

My Top Five:
1. What We Do In the Shadows
2. Force Majeure
3. Edge of Tomorrow
4. The Normal Heart
5. Guardians of the Galaxy

Song of the Sea might be on there but I haven’t seen it yet.

#ConfessYourUnpopularOpinion:
Boyhood is just as overrated as Birdman. One appeals to introverts prone to nostalgia and the other to extroverts with inferiority complexes, but they both favor meta-gimmicks/filmmaking difficulty over screenwriting and watchability. Give me a clever vampire movie any day (no, not that one). Selma should have won Best Picture.

CitizenFour has an interesting subject but the lack of explication and the hair-futzing were too much. If the Academy wanted to show Snowden some love, they should have waited for Oliver Stone next year.

The worst Oscar pick was definitely Adapted Screenplay. Moore’s heartfelt speech prevented the backlash he deserved for utterly botching a slam-dunk biopic. Aside from all the other ridiculous liberties taken, there is an invented Eureka! moment in The Imitation Game which is so laughably simple that it’s character assassination.

Out of your unseen movies,

Worth Netflixing: Begin Again, Big Hero 6, The Judge, Unbroken

Don’t Bother: Belle, Divergent, Fury, The Giver, The Imitation Game, Into the Woods, Jack Ryan, Maleficent, The Maze Runner, Muppets Most Wanted, Two Days One Night, Wild

Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen: Winter’s Tale

]]>Comment on Berkday 15. by garrethttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/berkday-15/#comment-157548008614463
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 21:43:08 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21938#comment-157548008614463Happy B-day, Berk. You are remembered, and missed. Even when my internet connection is borked.
]]>Comment on Berkday 15. by Hal B Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/berkday-15/#comment-157548008614453
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 17:32:04 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21938#comment-157548008614453I hate it. I hate, hate, hate it that our four-legged companions’ life spans are so much shorter than ours. It really sucks. Berk will *always* the dog of all bloggers.
]]>Comment on I’m Bona Fide. by Hal B Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/im-bona-fide/#comment-157548008485409
Tue, 20 Jan 2015 03:44:36 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21900#comment-157548008485409And just think, in 10 years your agency could certify you as ‘historically significant!’
]]>Comment on America’s Moral Collapse. by Hal B Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/americas-moral-collapse/#comment-157548008358468
Thu, 01 Jan 2015 21:01:22 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21849#comment-157548008358468I seem to have more or less numb on many of these subjects. And not comfortably…
]]>Comment on Forty. by Hal B Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/forty/#comment-157548008358445
Thu, 01 Jan 2015 20:57:55 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21889#comment-157548008358445Happy Birthday, Kevin! Forty is not too bad, really. I’m looking at 60 with a little trepidation, but it is probably more or less the same thing… Oh, and Happy New Year’s!
]]>Comment on Forty. by Krishttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/forty/#comment-157548008347084
Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:11:03 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21889#comment-157548008347084Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day.

And I’m bookmarking that cake recipe for myself. I’m laughing at the fact though that the author renamed it because people objected to “Irish Car Bomb,” yet somehow thought “Drunken Irish Cake” was less offensive. HA.

]]>Comment on At Fifteen, A Re-Shuffle. by Chris Mhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/at-fifteen-a-re-shuffle/#comment-157548007758030
Sat, 22 Nov 2014 14:41:24 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21819#comment-157548007758030Sounds like good news all around. Congratualtions!
]]>Comment on At Fifteen, A Re-Shuffle. by Hal B. Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/at-fifteen-a-re-shuffle/#comment-157548007719813
Thu, 20 Nov 2014 01:32:26 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21819#comment-157548007719813Congratulations, Kevin!
]]>Comment on It is Happening Again. by Hal B. Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/twin-peaks-returns/#comment-157548007539855
Fri, 31 Oct 2014 16:22:18 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21748#comment-157548007539855I missed quite a bit of popular culture in the early 1990s as I was living at the Nevada Test Site, but they did provide us with lots of TV in the evenings (along with alcohol), thus Twin Peaks was entirely plausible in that strange atmosphere of the NTS…
]]>Comment on Greedo shoots first (but only barely). by Willhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/greedo-shoots-first-but-barely/#comment-157548007508151
Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:25:49 +0000http://69.89.31.179/~ghostin3/?p=2023#comment-157548007508151Or, the manifestation of Anakin, (and Yoda, Obi-Wan) at the end of ROTJ is exactly the way it should be, each shown how they were ON THE GOOD SIDE OF THE FORCE! Anakin is shown as he was before he was suduced by Palpatine/The Emperor.Makes sense now?..Sheesh!
]]>Comment on Letters Never Sent. by Susu.rohttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/letters-from-iwo-jima-review/#comment-157548007319490
Wed, 03 Sep 2014 19:16:55 +0000http://69.89.31.179/~ghostin3/?p=4454#comment-157548007319490While “Letters from Iwo Jima” is truly a great achievement is several ways, the script is powerful, the production is superb, all the technical departments almost perfected their jobs, there is some really good acting as well, and Eastwood’s touch as a director is very visible, and its beautiful, it flaws almost flawlessly in this regard.

Well, what’s wrong then? It simply lacks what makes it a really interesting movie. “Letters” starts with a present day scene of excavators digging up remains of the war in Iwo Jima, and finding letters in a cave that were written by Japanese soldiers and officers during the war on Iwo Jima island, it then travels back in time to WWII and story revolves around those whom their letters were found during the dawn of the American invasion on that island. Slowly, the movie loses its grip over its audience, becoming something closer to an audio book, and survival becomes a repetitive process!!!

Everyone seem to be praising the film for being told from the other side, and its true you don’t see that many American film makers do that, and although the film didn’t just speak Japanese, it lived and breathed Japanese, it couldn’t escape the limited framework of Hollywood, this is very visible through the “good” characters, all the good, honest or lovable Japanese characters were either American sympathizers who lived in the US for a while and kept saying how a great nation the US is, or are Japanese people that do not care for the Imperial system and would not mind handing over the island to their rival Americans. On the other hand, all Japanese loyalists were mean American haters. Even the resolution of the strict Imperial soldiers was that the Americans were not as evil as they were told. But still, everyone was very fond of the fact that the movie was told completely from a Japanese point of view. However, just because Eastwood is an American film maker making a Japanese-point-of-view movie, doesn’t make the film any better than what it really is, the film’s ratings seem to be getting higher just because there is an American film maker behind it and I disagree, it is what it is regardless who the people behind it were.

The film was also highly praised as a companion film to “Flags”, and while together they form a great duo, on its own, “Letters” does not achieve greatness.

Why did Eastwood and Spielberg decide to make “Letters from Iwo Jima” this calm instead of making an adrenaline-pumping film? My guess is that they did not care about the average audience and the commercial success as much as they did care for the story’s integrity.

]]>Comment on August Recess. by Mike Fernandezhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/august-recess/#comment-157548007282512
Sat, 30 Aug 2014 23:46:38 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21608#comment-157548007282512Sintra is awesome, I’m jealous
]]>Comment on A Wasted Opportunity. | So Now What? by gregorylenthttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/wasted-opportunity/#comment-478656
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 22:59:47 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21472#comment-478656obama’s singular accomplishment .. no one can EVER run again on a platform of “hope and change”
]]>Comment on Tagged and Archived. by Hal B. Ragerhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/tagged-and-archived/#comment-469854
Sat, 19 Jul 2014 23:10:05 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=21404#comment-469854Well done K. Thanks!
]]>Comment on Dark Have Been His Dreams Of Late. by KcMhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/dark-have-been-his-dreams/#comment-458174
Mon, 14 Jul 2014 22:30:27 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=20753#comment-458174Ha! Yeah, I’ve been trying to procure Local Hero from Netflix for much the same reason, but, surprisingly, they seem to don’t carry it, even on DVD.

(I also didn’t know, at the time it passed through my queue a few weeks ago, that Capaldi was Malkovich’s right-hand-man in Dangerous Liaisons.)

]]>Comment on Dark Have Been His Dreams Of Late. by cdogzillahttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/dark-have-been-his-dreams/#comment-458159
Mon, 14 Jul 2014 22:21:54 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=20753#comment-458159Very much looking forward to Capaldi’s debut. So much so I’m even watching the Musketeers …
]]>Comment on Same Old Hillary. by KcMhttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/same-old-hillary/#comment-371159
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:47:40 +0000http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/?p=18809#comment-371159Oh, I’m aware. But, as Fitzgerald said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
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